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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25179052">Actions Have Consequences (and isn’t that a heart-pounding notion)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuzzCat/pseuds/BuzzCat'>BuzzCat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>(Belated) Cablanca Week 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Knives Out (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, One Night Stands, Unplanned Pregnancy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:07:23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,307</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25179052</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuzzCat/pseuds/BuzzCat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Two months ago, Marta and Benoit made a choice, chose an action. Now, there is a late-night phone call and Benoit learns their action has an unintended consequence.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Benoit Blanc/Marta Cabrera</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>(Belated) Cablanca Week 2020 [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1819165</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>66</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Actions Have Consequences (and isn’t that a heart-pounding notion)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Day 4 - Family</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The last time he saw Marta Cabrera, it was just the tail end of her sleeve. He had been asleep, barely even muzzily awake when he heard the door creak open and closed. By the time he’d blinked the sleep from his eyes he could see that only his clothes remained, that even the scent of Marta Cabrera had left his room, the girl herself already well down the stairs. And really, if she wanted to run, she could. It was her right. Benoit was a gentleman; he would not stop her.</p><p>And really, he couldn’t even blame her. They’d both been deep in their cups last night when she had suggested it was time to sleep, both of them <em>giggly</em> as he helped her walk to her room, even if he was leaning on her just as much as she leaned on him. And when they’d gotten there, there’d been this look. She’d looked at him and he’d asked, just to be certain, “Marta, I believe I would like to kiss you.”</p><p>Her eyes had been wide, dark and shining in the moonlight as she looked at his lips, then back to his eyes. Benoit would never forget her expression there, the naked want on her face. He would never forget how badly Marta Cabrera had wanted him. “I believe that I’d like to kiss you too.”</p><p>And then they’d kissed. And then they’d fallen to her bed, shirts shucked off and pants thrown aside, and it had been wonderful. She was wonderful. He’d fallen to the sheets beside her and barely got a blanket over the both of them before he fell asleep, Marta already breathing deep tucked against his side.</p><p>And suddenly it was morning, sunlight shining through the window of Marta’s bedroom in what was Marta’s very large house, and she was gone. She had left. If the poor girl wanted her peace, she could have it. If she wanted to be left alone, he could do it.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Two months later and not a word from Marta later, Benoit Blanc was still thinking about Marta Cabrera. It wasn’t a strange occurrence. In fact, it happened quite often. Which was something distracting, when for all intents and purposes he ought to have been accepting cases and looking for clients, not sitting on his porch, smoking a cigar, and thinking about a girl who was undoubtedly too busy to be thinking about him.</p><p>Tonight, he was thinking about shoes. Specifically, that spot of blood. How had he known? There he was, hired to investigate a strange case that was growing stranger by the minute, and directly in front of him was a girl who couldn’t lie, possessing a rock solid alibi, and unexplained blood speckled on her tennis shoe. Marta was kind, he knew that now and it was one of the very few things Benoit Blanc had ever been well and truly certain of in his life. But when he first met her. That first time, on the Thrombey porch, how had he known? What had he seen to know that Marta was so kind, that despite whatever evidence presented itself, she was innocent and would remain so at the hands of her kind heart?</p><p>And that was where all roads led, with Marta. Her kind heart. He’d heard that despite the poor reactions of the family, she had set each of them up with an allowance, not the same as to what they were accustomed, but enough keep them comfortable. Meg Thrombey’s school, Wanetta Thrombey’s care, all paid for by Marta Cabrera and her kind, kind heart. It was the thing that had drawn him to her that night, the thing that had snared and kept his thoughts through the many bottles of wine. There was an uncommon kindness in Marta, one he found refreshing after the avarice of the Thrombey’s and the general people he encountered in his line of work. Benoit was not ashamed to say that at times, when the fans in his various hotel rooms ran and the moon seemed too high and dawn was drawing too close, he thought of himself as bound to protect that kindness. It was his duty as a gentleman and as a friend (a term he could apply to himself only loosely) to keep Marta Cabrera safe. A privilege, rather.</p><p>And thoughts like that always led him into a heady sleep, the sort filled with kindness that brought him to his knees. Other times, it was gut-wrenching dreams that the knife in Hugh Drysdale’s hand had been real, that he had solved a case only to watch a kind woman die for it. Those dreams were the ones he tumbled out of more often than not, the fear thick on his tongue and quick in his blood, with a hand already reaching for a phone to dial a number he had no earthly explanation to call.</p><p>He had to remind himself of that more often than he would like to admit. She did not want to talk to him. She did not want to be anything to him but a memory, and that was what she wanted him to be to her. And Benoit would respect that and remember it, and since they’d likely next see each other at the trial for Hugh Drysdale, he could focus instead on how badly he wanted to kill the man who had given him these nightmares to begin.</p><p>But that was a thought train well-traveled, and there was no need to walk it again. It was late and his cigar had burned out, with the moon hanging low in the sky and the air heavy around him. Benoit Blanc knew it was time to call it a night, time to go to bed and spin the wheel to see if sleep would find him at all, which dream would find him in that sleep, when he felt his phone buzz.</p><p>He pulled it out, nearly dropping it when the name MARTA CABRERA displayed across the screen. It was late in Boston, and Marta Cabrera did not strike him as the type for a late-night phonecall unless something was well and truly wrong.</p><p>With a hand that definitely did not shake, Benoit Blanc accepted the call.</p><p>“Ms. Cabrera?”</p><p>“Detective Blanc? I—I’m sorry to be calling so late—” Her voice was muffled, stuffy, like she had a headcold. Like she’d been crying. He felt it like a bucket of cold water and Benoit was on his feet before he even had a thought.</p><p>“What happened? What’s wrong, Marta?” Had something come up? Had Hugh taken a plea, was he out? Had the family hurt her in some way, threatened her? Or was it something else, some new threat—</p><p>“I—God, I don’t want to do this over the phone.” A sniffle. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry to bother you, I didn’t mean for it, I don’t even—”</p><p>“Ms. Cabrera, please. Slow down. What happened?”</p><p>“We…I—I’m pregnant.”</p><p>Benoit Blanc had been shocked truly only a few times in his life. Not surprised, which he could handle with a raised eyebrow and hardly more, but well and truly shocked. Shocked in a way where the world was suddenly spinning on a different axis, where the anchoring force of reality slide sideways like sludge and Benoit Blanc found himself in a new and unexpected version of a world he once knew. Shocked in a way where there were no words, only sounds and feeling. The feeling of panic like an ice cube down his back, the sound of his lips trying to form around words that came out only as half-choked inarticulate sounds. Shocked to the core in the very moment, which had gone on long enough in silence he could hear Marta worrying.</p><p>Benoit scraped together words like stuck on gum and mashed them together to make one single and distinctly unhelpful sentence. “Well, that is a development.”</p><p>Marta laughed, a nervous thing he hadn’t heard since she was a murder suspect. “You could say that.”</p><p>They fell into silence again, not a silence of familiarity and comfort, but one that was stretched, wrong and filled with uncertainty. Benoit managed to clear his head enough to ask,</p><p>“What…are your plans?”</p><p>An exasperated sigh, and he knew she had run a hand through her hair. It was amazing, the little personal tics that stuck in his memory after months. Marta answered, “I don’t know. It’s not really the best time, is it? With the estate and moving and the press. It feels like something Harlan would have thrown out of a first draft of a book for being too distracting.”</p><p>Benoit made a noise of acknowledgement. His job was to observe without bias of the head or heart, and wait for Ms. Cabrera to arrive at the end of her own gravity’s rainbow.</p><p>She continued, “And Mama will…she’s going to have thoughts about it. She moved out of the house, is with relatives in Arizona, but even if she isn’t living here, she’s going to be so worried. She already worries about me in the house by myself.”</p><p>She was alone? That seemed strange, to him. Marta was a creature he could not imagine thriving in solitude. And thus far, she’d given him a lot of factors without giving him an answer to the most pressing question, so Benoit saw it as his duty to interrupt, to clarify, if nothing else.</p><p>“Ms. Cabrera—”</p><p>“We’re definitely at the point where you call me Marta.”</p><p>“Marta. What you’re telling me about are a lot of things and a lot of people, but things can be addressed and the people thus far are not the ones to take into consideration. What do <em>you</em> want?”</p><p>There was a deep shuddering breath over the phone. Her words came slowly, like she had tried them on to examine the fit from every angle and finally found the right combination.</p><p>“I want it.”</p><p>Some tightly wound knot that had been squirming in Benoit’s throat slowly relaxed its choking grip and warm relief flooded him as he asked, doing his level best to keep his voice steady, “You do?”</p><p>“Yeah. It’s not something I’d have been searching out, right now, but now that it’s here…I want it.” There was a pause, tentative and hesitant. “Are you okay with that?”</p><p>“I do not find myself opposed to the idea.” She couldn’t see him, so Marta didn’t need to know he was leaning on his desk, barely held up with one locked arm to keep him from crumpling to the floor. Relief, shock, whatever it was made his knees shake and Benoit had to slowly lower himself to the floor before he fell over.</p><p>“Oh. That’s good.”</p><p>And they were in silence again. Benoit kept his voice clear as he spoke, “In light of these events, I believe it would be beneficial if we discussed expectations and the like. Custody agreements, the sorts of things to hash out before they become strictly speaking necessary.”</p><p>“You want to be involved?”</p><p>Well, that rankled in all the wrong ways and Benoit frowned. “Well of course I want to be involved!” He may have been on the wrong side of forty with his own mother dead ten years, but he did still remember her lectures about the duties of a father and his own duties if he ever got a girl in trouble.</p><p>“Sorry, I just—I’m not sure why I asked, that’s not really a surprise.” She could give him some credit, at least. He hadn’t been the one to leave in the morning with no note, flee in the gray predawn light and avoid all contact until it was to announce an impending arrival. That had been all her. <em>Which is an unkind thought,</em> Benoit chastised himself. Marta had been going through one of the biggest upheavals of her life, the last thing she needed was a morning-after conversation about how it had been a mistake. And, he thought so privately he barely heard himself think it, he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to look her in the eye and say he regretted their actions.</p><p>“I do want to be involved, so much as I may.”</p><p>“You’re welcome to be as involved as you want. It’s yours too, after all.”</p><p>Which hit like a gut-punch, no matter how much it was a fact. Marta was pregnant and it was his too. He was going to be a father. And didn’t that raise all kinds of concerns.</p><p>“Thank you. I believe a more in-depth conversation would benefit us both, and I think over the phone is not the best way to have it. Would you be available if I were to call on Saturday afternoon?” That’d give him time to fly in, find a hotel, and wrap his head around the idea that when he was starting to look at a ten-year plan to retirement, a beautiful young woman was having a baby that was also his.</p><p>“Saturday sounds good. I’ll see you then.”</p><p>“Saturday.” Benoit was about to hang up the phone, finger hovering over the red button, but instead his traitorous mouth opened, and he asked, “Marta?”</p><p>He waited. Perhaps she had hung up.</p><p>“Yes?” There she was, voice wavering.</p><p>The words felt tight, like too little to say so much. “Thank you. For telling me.”</p><p>A pause. “You’re welcome. Thank you for listening.” As if he needed any thanking for that.</p><p>“Good night, Marta.”</p><p>“Good night, Benoit.”</p><p>And he hung up the phone, stared at the sky, and felt something like his heart fly out of his chest as he looked into the night.</p><p>He was going to see Marta again, and it was so much more complicated than he had ever imagined.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Look for another upload for this challenge tomorrow!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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